Militarized neighborhood search alarms neighbors
Police and prosecutors are cracking down on gun violence with neighborhood searches, tougher sentencing for gun possession crimes, and prevention and intervention measures.
While you probably won't see photos like this on the Charlottesville Police Department’s social media pages, this is what residents of Westhaven woke up to Tuesday morning last week — an armored vehicle with a heavily armed officer in the turret being used to execute multiple search warrants in connection with shooting investigations.
Both CBS19 and 29News reported on the June 17 joint operation between the Charlottesville and Albemarle County police departments, but those reports didn’t include images of an armored vehicle.
The above image was posted by activist Tanesha Hudson, who expressed concern on social media about the militarized approach to executing search warrants in certain Charlottesville neighborhoods.
"I’m not denying that the shooting or the crime isn't happening in our city...," she wrote. "But to militarize police at that level for a simple search warrant only when Black citizens commit crimes is not only racial but it's an intimidation tactic."
As Hudson noted, these operations have been happening around Charlottesville regularly, as police try to combat gun violence. However, the operations can be disturbing for people who live in the neighborhoods being targeted, particularly children who are now on summer break.
"I had just gotten off from work one morning (cause I work nights) and you should have seen how they (the Police) came," wrote a woman under Hudson's post, one of many people who expressed concern."It scared me only because I thought it was a shootout or something that was about to go down and I was a sitting duck in my car...I thought they was after an armed and dangerous fugitive or something."
Police conducted a similar early Tuesday morning search on Prospect Avenue the week before, June 10, related to an armed carjacking investigation, and an armored vehicle was used in another Tuesday morning operation in January on Hardy Drive and Lankford Avenue. Search warrant operations like this began in earnest last year when City and County police searched homes in a single operation on Hardy Drive, Riverside Avenue, S. 1st Street, Woodgate Court, and in Waynesboro on November 13.
“These are neighborhoods that continue to be disproportionately affected by violent crime,” Charlottesville Police Chief Michael Kochis told 29News at the time. "Our detectives have been working side by side, really trying to not only bring justice to the families involved in these but to also bring some type of comfort to our communities, knowing that we’re on top of this, that we’re doing something about it.”
According to a CPD news release, a pistol, a standard magazine, an extended pistol magazine, and a cell phone were recovered in the June 10 operation [a juvenile reported missing was also discovered and returned home], but there was no such announcement following the June 17 operation. Kochis told 29News he couldn't provide information on what was recovered because it was being handled by the Albemarle County Police. While ACPD spokesperson Logan Bogert told me that "items were recovered," she said no further information could be provided because the search warrants are sealed. Likewise, following the November 13 operation last year, which also involved the Virginia State Police, an ACPD release simply said “evidence and firearms” were recovered but provided no further details.
As you might recall, militarized searches and raids by various law enforcement agencies on Rose Hill Drive in 2024 and Fifeville in 2019 ended up outraging neighbors and yielded little evidence. Indeed, the highly militarized Rose Hill raid, conducted by the Virginia State Police, the DEA, and local law enforcement (seen below), resulted in the arrest of a 55-year-old woman for having a small baggie of cocaine.
Of course, this is in contrast to a multi-jurisdictional military-style operation that similarly alarmed residents in the Fry Springs neighborhood in September 2023, which was led by federal authorities and later resulted in the takedown of a large-scale drug operation.
"The militarization that you showed on your feed seemed like official overreaction and highly questionable," wrote former Charlottesville City Councilor Katherine Slaughter, responding to Hudson about the June 17 operation. "This definitely needs further discussion."
So far, there’s been little community discussion about this militarized approach to executing local search warrants. Indeed, as already mentioned, that approach during the June 17 operation wasn’t even covered by the local media.
I reached out twice to the Charlottesville Police Department to ask why an armored vehicle was used on June 17 but have yet to receive a response.
As a release on the June 10 operation noted, it was handled by the CPD's Emergency Services Unit, which includes a Special Response Team that responds to "critical incidents that are so hazardous, complex, or unusual” and may also “serve high-risk warrants, both search and arrest, where public and officer-safety issues necessitate such use," according to the CPD website.
During a 29News interview, Kochis cited a recent “shootout” between multiple people that officers responded to on Hardy Drive, suggesting a heightened threat assessment might have led to a more militarized approach in that location.
However, while there have certainly been a number of shots-fired incidents in the Hardy Drive area this year, there have also been shots-fired reports on the Downtown Mall, Simpson Lane in Esmont, locations in the County like Country Green Road and Pine Haven Circle, Belmont Avenue, Crozet, West Main Street, Stribling Avenue, and in our surrounding counties.
What’s more, a look at shootings that have resulted in deaths or injuries this year shows they have happened everywhere but Hardy Drive, and for a variety of reasons. There was, of course, the tragic Crozet Harris Teeter shooting which left three people dead, including the shooter, who had two previous encounters with police before the shooting and was suffering mental health issues. And there were these others:
A shooting at Pine Haven Court in Albemarle County that happened as a result of a domestic dispute, leaving one man wounded, which later involved an exchange of gunfire between the shooter and responding officers.
A shooting on Kent Store Way in Fluvanna County that left one man dead.
A man shooting himself on the south side of the Rotunda.
A shooting on Loblolly Lane that left a 77-year-old woman and an 86-year-old man dead.
A shooting by a 34-year-old woman in Louisa County who wounded her landlord.
A shooting that claimed the life of a young man in the Water Street parking lot.
In a recent book review in the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell talks to Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, whose new book “Unforgiving Places” challenges assumptions about the way we understand gun violence.
For instance, Ludwig argues that what often gets labeled as "gang violence" is "really just conflict between individuals who happen to be in gangs."
We misread these events because we insist on naming the affiliations of the combatants. Imagine, he suggests, if we did this for everyone: “ ‘This morning by Buckingham Fountain, a financial analyst at Morningstar killed a mechanic for United Airlines.’ Naturally you’d think the place of employment must be relevant to understanding the shooting, otherwise why mention it at all?”
In addition, according to Ludwig's research, only a small percentage of violent crimes are predatory, whereas the vast majority are caused by sudden, “emotionally charged disputes,” over things that people typically get upset about — infidelity, financial issues, child custody, not being respected, etc.
“A careful look at twenty years of U.S. murder data collected by the F.B.I.,” Ludwig writes, “concluded that only 23 percent of all murders were instrumental; 77 percent of murders—nearly four of every five—were some form of expressive violence.”
“Most shootings are crimes of passion, not profit,” said Ludwig in a recent University of Chicago podcast, “…recognizing that rage is one of the most powerful of human passions.”
Ludwig largely ignores gun control arguments, not because there aren’t too many guns so easily available in America (there are and its a big problem), but because he considers it lost cause in the United States.
"Gun violence is partly a function of guns and gun availability," says Ludwig, "but also a function of violence and the willingness of people to use guns to harm other people. And that actually leads to an optimistic observation...if you can't do anything about the gun side of the equation, you can do something about the violent behavior side of the question."
Histoprically, there’s been more of an emphasis on "taking guns off the streets" and putting more people in jail for gun violations when it comes to reducing gun violence, but Ludwig’s research suggests that showing care for people and their environments might be more effective.
For example, as Gladwell points out, there's a program in Philadelphia that has focused on cleaning up vacant lots in low-income neighborhoods by planting lawns, putting up attractive fencing, and keeping them clean. So far, they have cleaned up thousands of vacant lots, and in those neighborhoods there has been a 29 percent drop in gun violence.
Less aggressive policing has also been effective.
"Why did crime in New York continue to fall after the N.Y.P.D. ended stop-and-frisk?" Gladwell writes. "Because what makes police officers effective isn’t how many people they stop or arrest—it’s how many arguments they interrupt or defuse, ideally without resorting to handcuffs or charges."
Earlier this year, the City, County, and UVA partnered up to join the Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative, a federal program launched in 2001 which provides crime-fighting resources for what we saw on June 17, but also emphasizes prevention and intervention.
In fact, Kochis told City Council in February that he “hoped he wouldn’t have to use” the federal resources available under the program.
“…my concern is these young individuals, their access to firearms and using them to just settle what would just be a petty beef that now linger online for a very long time,” Kochis told City Council in February. “And that's what we continue to see. We have not seen many shootings or violent crime associated with the drug distribution.”
In April, Kochis announced in the department's annual report that there had been a 40 percent decrease in gun-related crimes over the past three years. Similarly, the ACPD's annual report said that violent crime was down 13 percent in 2024.
Unfortunately, a local non-profit that helps with intervention, Central Virginia Violence Interrupters (formerly known as the B.UC.K. Squad), could be losing funding. The non-profit’s executive director, Herb Dickenson (whose house was the target of that militarized Fifeville raid in 2019, ironically), recently told Charlottesville Tomorrow that they’ve “probably stopped 60” potential incidents of gun violence this year, though he admits its hard to measure what doesn’t happen.
Meanwhile, local prosecutors are focusing on gun possession crimes.
Back in April, Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania highlighted the long jail sentences of three men, who while they hadn’t shot anyone, were convicted of various gun possession charges, emphasizing that his office would continue to “prioritize community safety by working with our law enforcement partners to investigate, charge, and prosecute offenses involving firearms.”
However, Charlottesville also recently announced that it’s sponsoring the YOGO Initiative, a violence prevention education program developed by Charles Alexander (AKA Alex-Zan), an activist and one of the "Charlottesville 12" who integrated local schools, who has developed tools and resources to teach people to let go of feelings and emotions that can lead to violence.
It’s the kind of thing Ludwig’s research suggests we need more of in policing, in our criminal justice system, in our society as a whole. In fact, it’s the kind of thing TV host Fred Rogers talked about more than 50 years ago in a famous appearance before a Senate Subcommittee on Communications, which is just as relevant today as it was then. Maybe even more so today.
"If we can make it clear that feelings are mentionable, and manageable," said Rogers, "we will have done a great service for mental health. I think it's much more dramatic that two men could be working out their feelings of anger...much more dramatic than showing something of gunfire. I'm constantly concerned about what our children are seeing..."
Then Rogers read the words of a song he wrote to the Senators:
“What do you do with the mad...that you feel? When you feel so mad you could bite. When the whole wide world seems oh so wrong and nothing you do seems very right. What do you do? Do you punch a bag? Do you pound some clay or some dough? Do you round up friends for a game of tag? Or see how fast you go? It's great to be able to stop when you've planned a thing that's wrong. And be able to do something else instead. I can stop when I want to, stop when I wish, can stop, stop, stop anytime. And what a good feeling to feel like this. And know that the feeling is really mine. Know that there's something deep inside that helps us become what we can. For a girl can be someday a lady and a boy can be someday a man.”
Well shit, Dave! Wasn’t expecting it to be a tearjerker when I started reading. 🥹 Nice pivot